ADAPTIVE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT: CREATING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION TO SUPPORT STUDENTS’ PRACTICAL KEY COMPETENCES DEVELOPMENT

Higher education institutions are under significant pressure to provide affordable and sustainable approach that will prepare undergraduates with the skills they will need after graduation to achieve success in the 21st century European marketplace. Adaptive educational environment is among the new technology-based tools that have emerged with a promise to help educational institutions to prepare students better by providing them with valuable experimental learning and practical training opportunities that are uniquely suited to enable educational environment to increase students’ engagement for higher-order knowledge formation and practical beneficial skills. Additionally, universities are now offering study programs with courses that combine elements of face-to-face instruction and online learning, known as “blended-learning” concept.

The quality of teaching and learning in Slovak universities has long been a concern for governments, and continues to grow in importance. This article also presents the national project data from the stage of modelling a new advanced personalized educational multimodal virtual environment to the creating a culture of innovation for support students’ practical key competences development as an impact of new educational technologies. This paper presents an advanced educational model based on a creative diversity and problem solving techniques to move through the stages of a problem solving/creative process, each stage carried out at low to high level and using any creative style, as well. The paper is aimed to techniques as specific learned methods that allow students to use their existing cognitive resources - level and style to best advantages in the whole creative and innovation cycle to help an individual student to use what she/he actually holds, but in more effective ways through the learned managed personal behaviours.

Experimental exercises in the process solution for a selected group of mechatronics students use the modular chain of typical technology applications based on virtual modelling, simulation and instrumentation environment to create a dynamic model of innovative product or technology using representative mathematical system description with a simple or more complicated stimulus in the simulation. For this innovative concept, we present assessed element in the individual student’s cognitive strategy applying her/his knowledge about successful project presentation delivery by providing the tutors and students forum best practices for problem solving stage.

For the purposes of this article, an adaptive educational environment is presented from an institutional perspective and local industrial companies. The article discusses the didactical model based on the synergy of a course content and students key competences using blended learning and project-based concept leaving enough opportunity for students to practise by a single individual experiences or by a group under which task performance is accomplished more efficiently.

Ultimately, the findings suggest that adaptive educational environment to support university students’ practical key competences brings essential advantages and vital benefits from the three-key-partnership educational concept (3KP) as a result of experiences to stimulate student’s engagement and support deeper and practical learning through the synergy of the variety of educational experimental tools and effective model of didactics.